There is a particular micro-genre that I am just mad for. I'll read and enjoy anything if it includes this, and actively hunt things that include it out.
And that is: magical libraries. I love anything that involves magical libraries whether that's in a completely fantastical world or contemporary.
There's a handful of books etc that involve that as a reasonably core idea - Lirael by Garth Nix, 'The Librarians' tv show...perhaps the name of the Rose for literary novels! But it really isn't much of a genre. I don't think it should even count a sub genre really, hence micro-genre.
So! I could talk more about magical libraries (a lot more) but are there any micro genres that you guys are strangely attracted to?
And that is: magical libraries. I love anything that involves magical libraries whether that's in a completely fantastical world or contemporary.
There's a handful of books etc that involve that as a reasonably core idea - Lirael by Garth Nix, 'The Librarians' tv show...perhaps the name of the Rose for literary novels! But it really isn't much of a genre. I don't think it should even count a sub genre really, hence micro-genre.
So! I could talk more about magical libraries (a lot more) but are there any micro genres that you guys are strangely attracted to?
When it comes to books and TV, I'm living for good Middle East fantasy stories, which I sadly have a hard time finding! I just finished The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, and she better pick up the pace with that third one, because I am waiting very impatiently!
Netflix is also making a fantasy series, that's to take part in the Middle East and is being filmed in Jordan, and the premise sounded just up my ally. Really excited for that too!
Good stories about the fae folk is also something I really enjoy.
Netflix is also making a fantasy series, that's to take part in the Middle East and is being filmed in Jordan, and the premise sounded just up my ally. Really excited for that too!
Good stories about the fae folk is also something I really enjoy.
My favourite magical library book is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón 
I find myself wondering if you'd count something like the show Warehouse 13 as a magical library, even though it's neither a book library nor standard fantasy magic (more focused on fantastical psuedoscience).
I find myself a sucker for the idea of "sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science" (though I'm less interested in the opposite, "sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic"). Magic systems like those in Diane Duane's Young Wizard novels or the webcomic Unsounded (warning: don't read Unsounded if you're under 18), where magic works based on rules and "scientific" principles are my favorite kind, and settings that use them are always really interesting to me.
For example, wizardry in YW is based on the art of persuasion. Using the primordial language called the Speech, wizards essentially talk the universe into bending to their will, whether they're convincing a lock to unlock itself or persuading particles of superheated matter to accelerate past the speed of light. Wizards in YW operate in secret on Earth, but on some planets they're a fact of life. One location in that setting, the Crossroads, is basically a wizardry-powered intergalactic airport!
In Unsounded, magic (called pymary in that setting) is based on borrowing aspects of the world: a spellwright could borrow the prettiness of spring to put a visual glamor on themselves, or take the sharpness of a sword to cut someone, for example. There's also core leeching, which is when you take away one of the target's vital aspects and the khert (sort of the plane of magic, memories, the dead, and the gods) doesn't know what to do with what's left, so the core leeched thing/person is annihilated. Magical items (pymarics) power the setting's industrial development, from undead labor to enchanted rat traps to magic-fueled war machines. There's also one country with a messed-up khert that shapes the appearance and lifespan of those born within its influence, and allows for other, more unsavory things (killing people with only a personal identifier, for example).
For example, wizardry in YW is based on the art of persuasion. Using the primordial language called the Speech, wizards essentially talk the universe into bending to their will, whether they're convincing a lock to unlock itself or persuading particles of superheated matter to accelerate past the speed of light. Wizards in YW operate in secret on Earth, but on some planets they're a fact of life. One location in that setting, the Crossroads, is basically a wizardry-powered intergalactic airport!
In Unsounded, magic (called pymary in that setting) is based on borrowing aspects of the world: a spellwright could borrow the prettiness of spring to put a visual glamor on themselves, or take the sharpness of a sword to cut someone, for example. There's also core leeching, which is when you take away one of the target's vital aspects and the khert (sort of the plane of magic, memories, the dead, and the gods) doesn't know what to do with what's left, so the core leeched thing/person is annihilated. Magical items (pymarics) power the setting's industrial development, from undead labor to enchanted rat traps to magic-fueled war machines. There's also one country with a messed-up khert that shapes the appearance and lifespan of those born within its influence, and allows for other, more unsavory things (killing people with only a personal identifier, for example).
You are on: Forums » Smalltalk » Micro-genres
Moderators: Mina, Keke, Cass, Claine, Sanne, Dragonfire, Ilmarinen, Darth_Angelus